Plugged in

"There's a look in your eyes that I've never seen before," B told me. "It looks like you've been plugged in."

Oh, labor. You have the oddest effects on us ladies.

I awoke a little after midnight on Friday, May 6, feeling some discomfort in my belly and lower back. "This could be it," I thought, and knowing that I likely had a long road ahead of me, I attempted to fall back asleep. Alas, sleep wouldn't come. I stayed in bed for another 45 minutes or so, trying not to time the contractions but realizing that they were closer together than I expected, 5 minutes apart or so. From what I learned at our childbirthing class, most first labors start with contractions that are spaced out further, 15 minutes or so.

I decided to get up around 1 AM. If this really was labor, I wanted to be prepared for it. If not, well, a shower and blown-out hairstyle never hurt anyone, even when they are undertaken in the middle of the night.

I hopped in the shower, hoping that the hot water would alleviate some of the pain. Nope! Nevertheless, I washed my hair and tried to linger in the hopes of distracting myself from the discomfort.

And then I blew out my hair and put on makeup. Appearances matter, even when one is about to have a child.

Ten days have passed, and it's already difficult to remember exactly what the pain felt like. I guess it's true that you really do forget. The pain in my stomach was sort of like severe diarrhea cramps, and the pain in my lower back was right around my tailbone. I'd say I felt the pain was evenly split between belly and back.

When a contraction started, I'd make my way to the foot of the stairs and crouch down on all fours, a position I learned in childbirthing class. It helps when you have back labor (labor pains in your back--it can be from a backwards baby or a confused brain sending the wrong signals).

When the contractions started getting more intense, around 2:30 AM, I went into our bedroom and told B, "You need to get up." I thought that maybe the sound of my shower would have woken him, but he was sound asleep. He asked if he had time to shower, and I said, yes, absolutely. First-time labors are always lengthy, and I planned to stay at home for as long as I could.

He showered while I continued walking around, sitting on my balance ball, kneeling in front of the couch, lying on my side, attempting any position to help with the pain. I also used the breathing technique I learned in childbirthing class--deep breath in through your nose and then deep breath out through your mouth. I know I mocked the breathing technique a little bit, but it really did help and was a helpful distraction.

B warmed up the heat wrap for me and helped apply it to my back during each contraction, and it helped a bit. He also rubbed my lower back during the contractions, another helpful tool (or at the very least, another distraction).

By the time B finished eating breakfast and drinking his coffee, contractions were still somewhat irregular but were mostly less than 3 minutes apart. The pain was getting intense, so we decided to call the doctor.

We left a message with the answering service and received a call back almost immediately from the doctor on call at the hospital. He said that it sounded like I was in active labor and asked what my strategy for pain management was. I told him that I wanted to let labor progress as far as it could and that I wanted to wait as long as I could, and then I'd get an epidural. He said that I could hang out at home for another hour or two and come to the hospital when I needed help with the pain. It sounded like a plan to me.

We stayed home for another hour or so, but then by 4:30, I decided it was time to head to the hospital. B packed up the car with our bags, the car seat, and the balance ball, and we were off.

I didn't realize how bumpy the road to the hospital was until I had to ride on it while in labor! Being confined in my seat during each contraction and not being able to move around was difficult, but I did my best to breath through each one and remind myself that we'd be there soon.

We arrived at the hospital, parked in the garage (Second floor! Stairs!), and entered through the ER. They directed us to an elevator; we took a wrong turn (neither of us was thinking straight), but luckily a nurse pointed us in the right direction before we went too far. Walking during a contraction was nearly impossible.

As we pulled into the garage, we saw another couple--the woman obviously in labor, too--enter the hospital just in front of us. She clearly had had a more difficult start to labor than I had. My doctor told me that I couldn't go to the hospital until I had tears running down my face from the pain, and I never reached that stage, but this poor girl did.

We saw them waiting outside the check-in room when we arrived. We checked in and were told to wait outside. I walked around between contractions--walking helps keep things moving--and knelt in front of a chair during each contraction. After a few minutes, a nurse came out and called my name. However, no one had come for the other woman, who was clearly in worse shape than I, so I told the kind-looking nurse to take the other woman instead, and that I could wait for the next available person.

My nurse came out a few minutes later. She seemed a bit less kind. Oh, well--she was one of 3 nurses that we had, due to shift changes, so she didn't stick around for long.

She seemed doubtful that I was actually in labor. She wanted to know how far dilated I was at my last appointment and seemed to think that I couldn't be in labor. She reluctantly took me into a large triage room with individual cubbies that had curtains for privacy. She gave me a gown and belly band to change into, and then I returned to the little cubby.

Moving around in the cubby was nearly impossible--not enough space, and who wants to walk with a johnnie hanging open behind them, anyway--but the excitement of being in the hospital helped distract me from my contractions. The belly band held monitors that checked my and the baby's heartbeat, and one of them had an unpleasant nub that dug into my stomach, so I had to keep readjusting it, and then it would stop picking up a heartbeat, and it had to be adjusted again, prolonging the monitoring phase.

After a little bit, a resident arrived to examine me. Everyone took my situation much more seriously when her exam revealed that I was 5 cm (10 cm means you're ready to push) dilated.

"You're going to have a baby today!" she said.

"When do I get a room?" I demanded.

"In the next hour or so," she said.  But just a few minutes later, my nurse returned and took me to my room, where I had a little more privacy. (And when I say privacy, I mean privacy from other patients, not from hospital staff, as I can confirm that there is no privacy when one is birthing a baby.)

I had tested positive for some bacteria or other that 40% of people happen to be carrying around at any given time, so as soon as I got to my room, I had to get an IV with penicillin, further hampering my movements. Kneeling on a cold floor in a johnnie during contractions while trying not to impede my IV and monitoring wires was expectedly unpleasant. My mind started thinking thoughts of epidurals, but I tried to hold off as long as I could.

The nurse offered a drug that doesn't help with the pain but makes you feel a little drunk, but I passed, as I wanted to keep my wits about me. I was holding out for the real pain relief.

Eventually, the pain was too intense, and I was unable to breathe through it anymore. "Perhaps now would be a good time for an epidural," I said. The doctor's exam revealed that I was 6 cm dilated, a perfectly acceptable time for receiving pain relief. The anesthesiologist arrived quickly, and the insertion process took probably 15 minutes, and then I had to wait another 15 minutes or so for the pain relief to kick in. I think he was finished by 7:30 AM.

The anesthesiologist kept warning me about feeling bee stings and pressure, but I barely felt anything at all during the epidural insertion. I guess my mind had bigger pain to think about. An epidural consists of a catheter in your back that somehow makes all the pain go away. There is a button that can be pressed if you need more pain relief. (It came in handy later on.) The worst part of the epidural was its removal, as the anesthesiologist had put a huge piece of what felt like tape on my back and it had to be taken off. But that didn't happen for several more hours.

After the epidural kicked in, I had to lie on my side. My legs felt numb, sort of like the pins and needles feeling but without any pain, just delightful numbness. I could still feel each contraction, but it wasn't nearly as painful. The epidural did leave me shaky, a normal side effect that I was able to tolerate very easily.

I sent B off to get some food and tried to sleep. Sleep didn't happen, but resting with my eyes closed and not feeling any pain was lovely. Around 9:00, another exam revealed that I was at 9 cm. "Already?" I thought. I was not mentally prepared to push. At 9:45, another doctor came in, did an exam, and said that I was fully dilated and ready to go. She took what looked like a crochet needle and broke my water (painless), which ran clear (a good sign--big smiles from all the hospital staff), and then left me with the nurse.

The nurse asked if I felt like I had to push yet. I said I didn't know what that meant. She said it feels like you have to use the bathroom. I said, no, not yet, so we waited for another 10 minutes, and then I decided it was time to get the party started, so I started pushing a little after 10 AM.

The first 45 minutes or so of pushing was a bit anticlimactic. My contractions were spaced out pretty far apart, and it is possible that I was not giving the activity my full effort. I sort of wanted to see whether my full effort was really required.

As it turns out, it was. Eventually the doctor showed up, around the same time that the contractions were getting really intense, as painful as they were before the epidural. This part of the experience is a bit fuzzy. I kept looking at the clock and seeing time pass, all while feeling this enormous, crushing pressure in my abdomen. My third nurse, about as nice as the first, didn't want to give me another shot of the epidural because I was so close, but as things progressed and I was clearly struggling, the doctor told her to give it to me. I'm not sure if it kicked in, but it gave me the mental fortitude to keep going.

Around 11:30, I asked the doctor how much longer this was going to be, as I was not having fun and really wanted to get the whole ordeal over with. She said that if I pushed really hard, I could be finished in 30 minutes.

I took that as a challenge. She ordered some pitocin to make my contractions come more often, and I kicked my pushing effort into a higher gear. Within 15 minutes, our little Rooster entered the world, and the most severe pain was over.

Everything that happened next is fuzzy. I saw Rooster come out, and he was kind of slimy looking and gray (so not the romantic view of things, but it's true). The hospital staff got him crying (crying in a newborn is a good sign) and he got some color to him. I remember holding him for a little bit, and then the staff took him away for various tests and other activities while the doctors turned their attention to me.

There were a lot of stitches and a clot that had to be dealt with. I won't provide any more details, but moving around was very difficult for several days, and today is the first day that I have not had to take Motrin. It was one of many unexpected results of this whole baby thing.

Because of my late epidural shot, I had the shakies and had to stay in bed for another hour and a half or so until its effects wore off. B ordered lunch for us--I expected that I'd be ravenous afterwards, but I was somewhat unenthusiastic about food still--and then the nurse took me to the bathroom for a tutorial on how to use the bathroom for the next couple weeks. Again, I will not share details, but I will say that I was not mentally prepared for the physical damage of pushing a baby out.

Next I got into a wheelchair, and we rolled to the room where we'd be sleeping for the next two nights. It was much more spacious than some of the others (I think my post-delivery complications helped score us a bigger room, one positive result...). It had a private bathroom that was very poorly planned (no shelving!) and a few chairs and tables, including one horrible chair that converted into a "bed" for B. He was in pain for days afterward...

There is obviously much more to tell, but it has taken me 3 days to complete this posting, so I am just going to post it and continue on with my story when I have some free time.